Solved: Improve Google Ads Landing Page Optimization (Data Inside)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts on your landing page optimisation problem. It's a common sticking point for a lot of people running Google Ads, and it's good you're thinking about it. However, I have to be blunt from the start: your focus on traffic location is almost certainly a costly distraction from the real issue that's holding your campaigns back. It feels like the right thing to look at, but in my experience, it's a low-impact lever that often leads advertisers down the wrong path.

The truth is, for most businesses, knowing a user is from Manchester versus London tells you almost nothing about their readiness to buy or the specific problem they need solving *right now*. The key to unlocking your landing page performance isn't in geography, it's in psychology. It's about decoding the user's intent—their specific, urgent, and often expensive pain point—which is hidden in plain sight within their search query. That's what we need to focus on, and that's what I'll walk you through here.

Why Your Focus on Location is a Costly Distraction

Let's tackle this head-on. The idea that you need to tailor content based on location stems from an old-school marketing mindset that's been made largely redundant by the nature of search advertising. When someone types a query into Google, they are giving you the most valuable piece of information imaginable: their immediate need. They are telling you, in their own words, what is broken, what they are frustrated with, or what they aspire to achieve.

Whether the person searching for "ai agency near me" is in Bristol or Edinburgh is far less important than the fact that they are actively looking for an AI agency. Their problem isn't "I am in Bristol"; their problem is "I need AI expertise to solve a business challenge." Your landing page needs to scream "We are the experts who solve that exact challenge," not "Hello Bristol!".

Think of it like a doctor. When a patient comes in complaining of a sharp pain in their chest, the doctor doesn't start by asking about their postcode. They diagnose the underlying issue—the pain. Your search terms are the symptoms, and your job is to diagnose the underlying business disease. Focusing on location is like prescribing treatment based on their address. It's irrelevant at best and malpractice at worst.

This is one of the most common mistakes I see when auditing new client accounts. They have dozens of landing page variations for different cities, all with slightly tweaked copy, but the core message and the offer are identical—and usually weak. It's a massive amount of effort for a tiny, often negligible, uplift. All that time and resource could have been spent on the one thing that actually moves the needle: creating an irresistible message and offer that speaks directly to the searcher's pain point.

The algorithm is already handling the basics of location for you. Through campaign settings, you can target specific areas, use location extensions, and adjust bids. That's where geography belongs—in the campaign's targeting settings, as a way to control *who* sees your ad. It should not be the primary driver of your *messaging strategy* on the landing page itself. The messaging needs to be about their problem, first and foremost.

I'd say you need to define your customer by their nightmare, not their location

This brings me to the core of my philosophy on paid advertising. Forget the sterile, demographic-based profiles. "Companies in the finance sector with 50-200 employees" tells you nothing of real value. It leads to generic ads and landing pages that speak to everyone and therefore, resonate with no one. To stop burning cash, you have to define your customer by their pain. More specifically, their nightmare.

You need to become an expert in their specific, urgent, expensive, and sometimes career-threatening problem. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a *problem state*. Let me give you some examples from my experience.

Your Head of Engineering client isn't just a job title; she's a leader terrified that her best developers are about to quit because they're so frustrated with a broken, inefficient workflow. Your ad and landing page shouldn't talk about 'workflow automation software'; it should talk about 'retaining your top engineering talent'.

For a legal tech SaaS I've seen, the nightmare isn't 'needing better document management'. The nightmare is a senior partner missing a critical filing deadline, exposing the entire firm to a multi-million-pound malpractice lawsuit, and ruining a 30-year reputation overnight. The messaging has to reflect that level of urgency and risk.

Once you've isolated that nightmare, you can build your entire strategy around it. The keywords you target will reflect that pain. The ad copy you write will agitate it. And your landing page will present your service not as a nice-to-have, but as the only logical solution to make the nightmare go away. This is how you shift from being a commodity to being a necessity. And it has absolutely nothing to do with whether the user is in Leeds or Liverpool.

We'll need to look at how to decode the nightmare from their search query...

So, how do we do this in practice? It starts and ends with your Google Ads Search Terms report. This is your single source of truth. You need to be obsessed with it. Your job is to categorise every meaningful search term not by topic, but by intent and pain level.

I typically break keywords down into three broad categories:

1. Problem Unaware / Informational: These are queries like "what is pmax" or "how to improve website traffic". The user has a vague notion of a problem but isn't actively looking for a paid solution yet. They're in research mode. Sending this traffic to a hard sales page is a complete waste of money. They should be sent to a blog post, a guide, or a webinar that educates them. Frankly, you probably shouldn't be bidding on these with a limited budget unless you have a sophisticated content marketing funnel.

2. Solution Aware / Navigational: This is where queries like "paid ads consultant" or "b2b advertising agency" sit. The user knows what kind of solution they need, and they are now comparing providers. Their pain is more defined. They are evaluating options. Your landing page needs to quickly establish credibility, showcase results (case studies are brilliant here), and differentiate you from the competition.

3. Specific / Transactional: These are the goldmine keywords. Queries like "fix my google ads account", "saas lead generation agency", or "linkedin ads expert for software companies". The user has a specific, acute pain and is looking for an expert to solve it immediately. They are not just 'solution aware'; they are 'pain aware'. This is where your landing page needs to be hyper-specific. The headline must mirror their exact problem, and the offer must be a direct solution.

Here’s a table showing how this might look in practice for a service like ours:

You should build a similar table for your own business. This exercise alone will be more valuable than any amount of geographic tweaking. It forces you to get inside your customer's head and organise your entire advertising effort around solving their problems, not just selling your service.

You probably should build a message they can't ignore...

Once you've decoded the intent, you need to reflect it perfectly on your landing page. The user should feel an immediate sense of recognition and relief, thinking, "Finally, someone who understands my exact problem." This starts with the headline.

Your landing page headline is not the place to be clever or creative. Its only job is to promise a solution to the problem that the user just typed into Google. It should be a direct continuation of the conversation they were already having in their head.

There are two powerful copywriting frameworks I use constantly for this:

1. Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS): This is perfect for high-touch services. You start by stating the problem, make it feel more painful, and then present your service as the solution.

• Problem: Are your Google Ads costs spiraling out of control with nothing to show for it?
• Agitate: Every day you delay, you're burning cash that your competitors are using to steal your customers and dominate the market.
• Solve: We build profitable Google Ads campaigns that deliver qualified leads, not just empty clicks. Get your free proposal today.

You don't sell "Google Ads management"; you sell an end to wasted money and the anxiety that comes with it. You sell confidence and predictable growth.

2. Before-After-Bridge (BAB): This is brilliant for SaaS products or any solution that creates a clear transformation.

• Before: Your Google Ads dashboard is a mess of confusing metrics. You stare at it, hoping for a sign, but have no idea which levers to pull to actually improve performance.
• After: Imagine opening a simple, one-page report that tells you exactly what's working, what's not, and the top 3 actions you need to take this week to increase your ROAS.
• Bridge: Our platform is the bridge that turns data chaos into profitable clarity. Start a free trial and see for yourself.

In both cases, you'll notice the copy is specific, emotional, and focuses entirely on the customer's world, not yours. There's no fluff about being "innovative" or "results-driven." It's pure problem-solving. This is what your landing pages need. A visitor from Glasgow with a ROAS problem has the exact same internal monologue as a visitor from Cornwall with a ROAS problem. The solution you present should be tailored to the pain, not the place.

And you'll need to delete the "Request a Demo" button...

This is probably the most common and damaging failure point in all of B2B advertising. The 'Request a Demo' or 'Book a Consultation' button. It is, without a doubt, the most arrogant and self-serving Call to Action ever conceived.

Think about what you're asking. You're asking a busy, important person who doesn't know you or trust you to stop what they're doing, open their calendar, find a time slot, and commit to spending 30-60 minutes being sold to. It's an incredibly high-friction ask that presumes your prospect has nothing better to do. It instantly positions you as just another commodity vendor, another salesperson trying to get into their wallet.

The only job of your offer is to deliver a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell *themselves* on your solution. You must solve a small, real problem for them for free to earn the right to solve the whole thing later.

What does this look like in practice?

• For a marketing agency: Don't offer a 'consultation'. Offer a "Free Google Ads Wasted Spend Audit" that identifies their top 3 areas of wasted budget. Deliver it as a personalised video or a one-page PDF. It's tangible, valuable, and proves your expertise without a sales pitch.
• For a data analytics platform: Don't offer a 'demo'. Offer a "Free Data Health Check" that connects to their database and flags the most critical issues.
• For a corporate training company: Don't offer a 'brochure'. Offer a free, 15-minute interactive video module on 'How to Handle Difficult Conversations with Underperforming Staff'.

For us, as a B2B advertising consultancy, it’s a 20-minute strategy session where we get into their ad account and give them actionable advice, completely free. We solve a real problem for them on the call. Many of them go on to become clients because we've already demonstrated our value. We didn't need to sell; we just helped. Your offer needs to do the same.

This is a fundamental shift. You stop trying to generate 'Marketing Qualified Leads' (MQLs) for a sales team to chase and start creating 'Problem-Solution Fit' where the prospect is already convinced of your value before you even speak to them.

So, when does location actually matter?

After all this, you might be wondering if location has any role to play at all. And it does, but its proper place is within your *campaign targeting structure*, not as the primary driver of your landing page copy.

This is where you use Google's tools to ensure your ads are seen by the right people in the right places. For a truly local service business—think an emergency electrician or a plumber—location is of course absolutely critical. For these businesses, search queries often include location modifiers like "near me" or "in [City]".

Even then, the most effective way to handle this isn't by creating a dozen different landing pages. It's by:

• Using tight location targeting in your campaign settings (e.g., a 15-mile radius around your office).
• Enabling location extensions so your address and a map pin appear directly in the ad, building immediate local trust.
• Using keywords that include location names (e.g., "emergency electrician chelsea") and ensuring those locations are mentioned on a single, well-optimised service page.

For national or international B2B and SaaS businesses, location is even less of a messaging concern. You set your campaigns to target the countries or regions you serve, and that's it. The nightmare of a CFO struggling with cash flow projections is the same in America as it is in Australia. The software solution is the same. Your landing page should reflect that universal problem.

The one minor exception is using dynamic text replacement to insert a user's city into a headline (e.g., "The Top Rated Ad Agency for Businesses in London"). It can provide a small boost, a little nod of recognition. But it's a 5% optimisation, a "nice-to-have". It should only be considered after you have perfected the 95%—the core message-to-intent match and the high-value offer. Don't let this minor tactic distract you from the foundational work that truly drives growth.

This is the main advice I have for you:

I know this is a lot to take in, and it represents a significant shift from how most people think about landing page optimisation. It's about moving from superficial tactics to a deep, strategic understanding of your customer. To make it more actionable, I've broken down my primary recommendations into a clear framework for you to follow.

Following this framework requires discipline. It's not as easy as just changing a city name in a sentence. It demands that you truly understand your customer on a deep, psychological level. But the reward is immense: campaigns that not only convert, but attract the *right* kind of customers—those with a real, urgent problem that you are uniquely positioned to solve.

This is the work we do day-in, day-out for our clients. It's a process of continuous testing, learning, and refining based on real-world data, not guesswork. It can be a difficult and time-consuming process to manage on your own, especially when you're also trying to run a business.

If you'd like to have a second pair of expert eyes on your campaigns and discuss how this strategy could be specifically applied to your business, we offer a completely free, no-obligation 20-minute strategy session. We can dive into your account together and identify the biggest opportunities for growth.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh